5 months ago
1
Kolkata
The Election Commission of India on Monday (December 8), started a duplicate elector recognition process, where a caller diagnostic was added to the Booth Level Officer’s application successful West Bengal to identify and verify duplicate voters. Five caller electoral observers have been appointed for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) successful the State to oversee the full process.
“There are galore duplicate electors successful galore places crossed the State. To identify them, the officials person added this diagnostic to the BLO app. Though names and the father’s sanction of 2 voters tin beryllium an nonstop match, the different specifications cannot beryllium the same, like address and day of birth. Cross-checking this information will assistance BLOs identify the duplicate voters,” Swapan Mondal, general caput of Votekormi and BLO Aikya Mancha, West Bengal State Committee, told The Hindu on Monday.
BLOs further added that galore of them person been sent lists of voters with the aforesaid names to recheck details and verify if immoderate of them are duplicate voters.
The West Bengal CEO bureau has identified over 56.38 lakh “dead, duplicate, untraceable and shifted” successful the State. The number of duplicate, dead, and untraceable voters is based connected the enumeration forms that were distributed and collected, of which over 99.64% forms person already been digitised in the State, according to sources successful the Chief Electoral Officer’s bureau successful West Bengal.
According to existent information shared by sources astatine the CEO office, the voter database includes astir 24 lakh dormant voters, 10.95 lakh untraceable voters, 19.65 lakh shifted voters, 1.32 lakh duplicates, and 0.48 lakh others.
Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari connected Monday accused that in galore areas, IPAC (political consultancy firm) staff filled up forms connected behalf of BLOs. “That is wherefore the number of dormant and shifted voters are increasing rapidly. If the ECI functions with honesty, these IPAC people will beryllium caught and penalised,” Mr Adhikari further added. He besides claimed that galore BLOs bash not person immoderate thought who filled up their forms and changed the names of radical and their family members.
In a related development, the ECI has also added five elder IAS officers arsenic Special Roll Observers (SRO) in the State along with the 12 others they appointed past week.
SROs appointed by the ECI on Monday include Kumar Ravi Kant Singh from the Ministry of Defence for the Presidency Division, Niraj Kumar Bansod from the Ministry of Home Affairs for the Medinipur Division, and Krishna Kumar Nirala from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting for the Burdwan Division. Alok Tiwari from the Department of Economic Affairs was assigned to the Malda Division, portion Pankaj Yadav from the Department of Rural Development will oversee the Jalpaiguri Division.
The hiring of the five additional observers comes days after retired IAS serviceman Subrata Gupta was appointed arsenic another ‘Special Roll Observer’ on November 28.
The draught electoral rolls volition beryllium published connected December 16, and the last elector lists are acceptable to beryllium published connected February 14, 2026. The State Assembly elections are acceptable to beryllium held successful mid-2026.
